June 10, 2011

Review "The Old Prophecy Of Winterland" in Burning Black Webzine (English)

“The Old Prophecy Of Winterland” is the first full length album of this Spanish Black Metal horde, this work was preceded only by a demo entitled “Winds From The North” released in 2007 and a four track single entitled “Cold Souls” released in 2010… The band delivers at this album a cold and epic form of Black Metal in the finest Scandinavian tradition, even the concept behind this album seems to be borrowed from some renowned Norwegian band (yes, I’m talking about Immortal), just check the name of the tracks and will know what I’m talking about… Anyway, the eleven compositions contained at this album are quite remarkable, the accurate mix between freezing Black Metal, thrashing structures and some Heavy Metal hints thrown in, results in a solid and epic opus. “The Old Prophecy Of Winterland” is an interestingly varied work; the whole album structures moves over varied tempos, the versatile drumming is certainly protagonist, Arjan displays here an accurate and powerful performance, dealing perfectly with every tempo and structure change on this record. The guitar work is heavy, thrashing and slightly melodic, which creates the most of the epic aura that surrounds this album, while the vocals of Grinder consist in some quite standard mid tone Black Metal shrieks, that even when does not contributes with the whole album’s sense of originality, certainly does its job in a very efficient manner… The excellent production in heavy contrast with the raw style of this album, reminded me to the sound of “Plaguewielder”/”Hate Them”-era Darkthrone and post “Intermezzo II” Satyricon (the band actually included a cover of “Fuel For Hatred”, from “Volcano”, on this record), so if you enjoy the sound of a clearly produced piece of cold and straight Black Metal, I think you should take a listened to this album. The incredibly amount of skills and potential on this record certainly makes it a piece worthy of checking out…